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I write entirely not often enough. In the time since my last post, so much has happened. I’ve had a baby! A beautiful and perfect baby boy, Asher. I’ve gained so much, so much love, so much warmth, so much respect and understanding for other parents, but I’ve also lost someone very valuable to me. My grandma, who was living with my parents, passed away almost exactly a month after my son was born. It puts us all in an interesting position of grief and celebration.

My gorgeous boy has been such an exciting arrival. I am an only child, as is my husband, and this is our first baby. Not even our cousins have started having kids yet, so as you can imagine, it’s a big deal. We were completely taken aback by how much people wanted to bless us. Almost everything we needed was either given to us, or bought with money and gift cards that we received. Everyone was so excited about our baby, and especially my grandma.

For those of you who knew her, you know that she was very sick for a very long time. She went in and out of the hospital more times than some people do laundry. But when she found out I was pregnant, she was determined to meet the little one. It’s all she could talk about when I was around. “Is that baby here yet? I want to pat his bottom.”

There have been times that she was so sick that I even started to question God. Why did he keep her here instead of taking her home to heaven, where she really wanted to be anyway? I know that may sound incredibly harsh and insensitive, but she missed my grandpa. She missed her deceased siblings. She missed her parents. And she was in so much pain. She was constantly battling some sickness or another, and never without pain.

And then, early one morning, my mom called. I knew what the call was about, because she had been particularly sick – so sick that even the hospice care staff expected she wouldn’t last long. I stepped out of my bedroom, walking past the bassinet that held my perfect, sleeping infant, and took the call in the living room. It was sad. Expected, but still sorrowful. Over the next week we made preparations for the memorial, and people who had known my grandmother in her life came to pay their respects. Some family members I don’t often see came to pay their respects and say goodbye. But they were also anxious to see the new baby. It felt odd, showing off a precious new life and saying goodbye to an old one at the same time.

As the day wore on, I was reminded of Ecclesiastes 3 –

There is a time for everything,and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 a time to be born and a time to die…

And sometimes those times overlap. Sometimes the last memories you get with your grandma will be of her holding your brand new baby.

Though it hurts, I am grateful that God gave us that. I am grateful that she no longer suffers. I wish Asher could have known her, but I am glad that at least she got to know him.

I am 22 years old. I am living in my first apartment, working my first real job, freshly graduated from college, etc. As I have been on this journey through adulthood, I have discovered some things I did not anticipate. I mean, bills and stuff, I was ready for that. But I had no idea about these:

1. I am empowered.

People ask for my opinion, and it matters. Now I believe my parents and the other adults in my life have always taken me seriously to a certain extent because I’ve always been pretty mature. But now, in this strange turn of events, everyone is paying attention to me. People ask me questions, and I have the answers. People want my input, and they use it. It’s nice to feel important. Except now like, at the DMV I can’t really play the, I’m-a-dumb-teenager-please-pity-me card. And people expect me to be able to parallel park, which is a lot of pressure.

2. I am a light-switch Nazi.

When I was a kid, I used to get in trouble because I would walk out the door and leave every light on. I just really wanted our home to be a safety beacon for prodigal nocturnal mammals and birds, I guess. But now, now that I pay my own bills, I dont even sit in my living room if my bedroom light is on. That porch light? You’d better text me as you walk up the stairs if you want it on when you visit. Ain’t no lightbulb in my house getting overused. And on the same token, I treat the thermostat like a nuclear reactor. Only touch in cases of extreme emergency. Like if your toes are falling off. even then, put some more socks on because its only going up one degree.

3. I. Get. So. Much. Junkmail.

Like, every single day, I get coupons for 1000 baby diapers and purple Q-Tips. I get coupons for free stuff, cheap stuff, expensive stuff, new stuff, and old stuff. I get offers for credit cards, cable subscriptions, face washes, club memberships and dating sites. (No, really.) I have to throw away so much paper it’s practically sin. I mean, seriously. No, I do not want to buy 60 pounds of beefsteak, grocery store in another state.

4. I have to scrape ice off of my own car.

I mean, yes, I can have a man do those kinds of things for me… scrape ice, move boxes,pump gas, etc. But my point here is that I can’t just wait around fro Dad to do it because it’s not his job anymore. And he’s not here. So, to the Elvis CD whose jewel case I used to scrape ice this morning, I hope you didn’t want that back. Because I’m an adult and I scrape my own ice. And I am not very good at it.

5. I have begun to see price in terms of hours worked. And I see work in terms of items purchased.

Adulthood has made me incredibly practical. My mom has always said things like, “No, you do not need to buy the 12 dollar nail polish because that is an hour out of my life and I could buy like 16 lightbulbs for that.” And I just thought she was being selfish. But look, y’all. I don’t buy crap anymore. Unless I have lectured for an hour thinking, “this lecture on the principles of marketing will pay for four boxes of fancy crackers” then I buy no fancy crackers. I buy regular crackers and save six bucks.If I get a gift card, I think, “Wow! toilet paper and toothpaste!” In fact, everything fancy I have bought lately, was not without a brief evaluation of how many unfancy things I sacrificed for that item. I’ve learned I’m just not into wasting my own money the way I am my parents’ money.

6. And most shocking and heartbreaking of all, kids now call me lady. And I call them kids.

I’m not a “girl” anymore. The other day in the airport I overheard this cute group of teenage girls say something about the “lady” behind them. And then I realized that “lady” is me. And then I realized I had just been thinking “Oh what cute young girls.” I AM MY MOTHER. But I’ll save that thought for another post. Anyway it makes me feel like these ladies.

Don’t get me wrong, adulthood is super. I enjoy it. I like responsibilities, I like respect, and I like freedom. I guess there’s just some things about it that I’m gonna have to get used to.

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If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If you're a pretender come sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!”